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In a head-to-head study, heart failure patients taking a new, comprehensive beta-blocker drug lived longer than those prescribed a traditional selective version. The Carvedilol or Metoprolol European Trial (COMET) tested 3,029 patients from 15 European countries and 317 centers over a period of six years.
“The results of COMET provide clear evidence of the survival benefits of carvedilol over metoprolol in the treatment of chronic heart failure and suggest that carvedilol prolongs the life of patients by 1.4 years compared with metoprolol,” Dr. Philip Poole-Wilson, chairman of the COMET steering committee, recently stated. “Carvedilol’s significant survival benefit could mean thousands of lives saved each year.”
Carvedilol, marketed as Coreg¨ in the United States, reduces the amount of work for the heart and improves its ability to pump blood through the body. The drug is approved for treating hypertension, as well as to reduce the risk of hospitalization in heart failure patients.
Metoprolol tartrate--the type of metoprolol used in the study--is a generic form of Lopressor¨. Nearly five million Americans are now living with heart failure.
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